


your mountain is waiting

by Slinky (Golbez)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Chinese-Filipino Character, DFAB Frisk, Family Drama, Filipino Character, Filipino Frisk, Frisk didn't fall, Gen, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Misgendering, Nicknames, Nobinary Frisk, POV Frisk, POV Third Person Omniscient, well mostly pov frisk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 04:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5898964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golbez/pseuds/Slinky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one world, Frisk was the first child to fall to the Underground. There, they grew up to be the Captain of the Royal Guard alongside their brother, Prince Asriel.</p><p>In this world, Frisk would have been the first child, but then they didn't climb Mt. Ebott.</p><p>An AU of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5786140">an existing AU.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	your mountain is waiting

**Author's Note:**

> So before all else, this is an AU of an AU. It's not particularly spoilery for the main fic since a large part of Captain Frisk's background has already been revealed over on their blog over the past few months (mercystick). I'd say you don't have to know the AU to enjoy this piece, since I do believe it stands well enough on its own as a drama, but it also heavily references the version of Frisk from the main AU, so do keep that in mind.
> 
> Fair warning, the only canon character here is Frisk/Ranz. This is an exploration of the fourteen years after they chose _not_ to go to Mt. Ebott, after all. There are only humans in this fic.
> 
> Originally posted at <http://mercystick.tumblr.com/post/138663472071>

~~Esperanza Francesca had once~~

~~Frisk~~

**Ranz de la Cruz**  had once thought about the mountain that loomed over their hometown.

They had been eight and they had thought about how easy it would be to disappear, how easy it would have been to run away and never come back. They had been sitting at the window of the room they shared back then with their eldest brother, staring out at the night sky as their back stung from where leather had stolen skin and left ugly welts in its wake. It would have been easy to steal one of their brother's sweaters and slip out just past midnight. It would have been easy to sneak past all the tanods and run to the mountain that loomed ahead, the mountain where diwatas and aswangs and all sorts of terrible things lived.

In one world, they stole their brother's blue and pink sweater and fled. In this one, they lay back down beside him–carefully, to avoid agitating their back–and went back to sleep.

Life had carried on normally, and they never thought about going to Mt. Ebott again.

When their brother turned eighteen a few weeks later, he did not leave for the city alone, not like he would in another world. He had reached for them as they stood together on the train platform and ruffled their hair and said, "Frisky, I thought about what you said. You're right, I can't just leave you behind."

"...so you're staying?" they had asked, unsure if this was right, because Kuya Juanito had been talking about leaving for _months_. It had been his life's dream to move away, to go to the city and study and become–something.

"Nah," Juanito had said with a grin, "I'm bringing you with me."

And he'd produced another train ticket right then and there, for them to hold onto. They'd jumped into his arms and laughed and clutched the ticket tight all throughout the day, as if it were a lifeline that would disappear if they ever let go of it.

"Can I cut my hair in the city?" they'd asked as they stepped onto the train. Juanito had laughed and smiled down at them.

"You can have anything you want in the city."

(Later, years later, they would find out from their other brothers that Juanito had spent the weeks leading up to his birthday working harder around town than he'd ever had before, just to get the money for the extra ticket.

Agustin had laughed and said, "We thought he was going to bring a secret girlfriend with him! Like...Lili! You remember Lilibeth from across the street, right?"

Rafael had sneered and said, "Stupid jerk didn't tell us he was stealing _you_.")

In another world, they called themselves Frisk because that was what their brother had called them, and when they turned thirteen, they asked their new father to teach them to fight. In this one, they called themselves Ranz because they thought it was cool, and when they turned thirteen, their brother brought them to the university where he was studying and working, and showed them around. Their first encounter with a computer had been in that school's library, where it was quiet, more quiet than they'd ever thought the city could be. Their brother showed them how to use the computer, how to find games on it, until the old librarian caught them and told them off. After Juanito explained it was their birthday, Mrs. Oan had sighed and given them candy before shooing them off.

Ranz was back in the library the next day, after begging Juanito to let them go while he attended classes, and this time they had poked around at the books and tried to find something that wasn't _boring_.

They'd settled for a book about ancient monsters and went back everyday they could to read it. Then Mrs. Oan had found them three weeks later and discovered they weren't in school and in that funny accent of hers told them to _go get that brother of yours right this instant!_

(She died three years later. Ranz was sixteen and in their second year of high school. They took a few days off to join her seven children and fifteen grandchildren for the funeral. Mrs. Oan's seven children all spoke with accents and ruffled Ranz's hair and welcomed them as their ‘eighth brother' when they found out their mother had left things to them too.)

And then they were suddenly stuck.

At twenty, they were out of school and living on Juanito's couch, trying to figure out what to do next. When Dennis Oan, the sixth out of seven Oan children, called them up and offered them a job at his company, they took it. When he called them again and sent them to his brother, they complied. When they were recommended to each sibling in turn, they simply went along with it.

They learned a lot being bounced around the big family's businesses, but they still hadn't known what they wanted to do.

"There's always college," Analyn had said. She was number six of fifteen grandchildren and now Juanito's girlfriend and she'd had an iPad on her lap when she'd said this, a half-finished portrait of Juanito taking up the screen (the real one had been passed out over his laptop on the armchair opposite them). Ranz would always remember because they'd thought his nose had been a little crooked and his skin a little too pink (like her hair).

"I wouldn't know what course to pick," Ranz had replied, and she hadn't said anything further about it.

Ranz spent another year at home. Sometimes they'd go run errands for the Oans, and things got much, much more exciting and busy after Juanito proposed to Analyn (there had been _so many_  rituals and traditions to follow from her side of the family), but they were still looking, searching for something only they could do. There were some days though, where they asked themselves if it were okay to just carry on like this. They were alive, they were happy. All they could ever ask for in the world was right here.

And then, one night, after another day of accompanying Analyn around the city, Juanito came home, set his laptop down before them, turned it on, and opened a program they'd never heard of before.

It wasn't long before their mother's face appeared on the screen.

Maria Josefina de la Cruz had not aged well. In another world, her deep wrinkles and gray hair were the result of years and years of sorrow and guilt and regret over losing her first daughter and then her husband Francisco not long after. In this one, they were from years of hardship and perseverance on top of the guilt of not being able to keep her first son and her first daughter at home, of not having been a mother they had wanted, and of fearing that she would never see either of them again. In this world, Juanito never wrote home, never sent money back. He never had the idea to do so when any reason he might have had to had joined him on the train thirteen years ago.

" _My child,_ " Josefina had whispered, a sound that the cheap built-in microphone on her end barely picked up. She had her hands over her mouth and tears in her eyes. "Oh my child, I'm so happy you're safe."

"Mom," Ranz had breathed, and then they'd looked up at Juanito, and they'd remembered the child they had been a lifetime ago. They remembered wearing their hair in long twin braids and wearing skirts and dresses and going to Church every Sunday. They remembered how Juanito had looked then, with his messy hair and always just wearing a _sando_  and shorts, nothing like the clean polos and crisp coats he wore now. They remembered their other brothers, whom they had not liked, who had teased them and tugged at their hair, who had never listened, not really.

They remembered the belts and the barrels of water and the mongo seeds and they remembered thinking they were going to die.

They remembered _wanting_ to. They remembered Mt. Ebott.

"Show him, mom." Juanito's voice had cut through their thoughts, and Ranz had watched as their mother beamed and stepped aside and a girl Ranz had never seen before stepped into the camera's range.

The girl glanced up at them, shyly.

In another world, the thirteen year old girl might have introduced herself as Francesca, named for a sibling no longer there. To Ranz, over a wobbly internet connection, the thirteen year old introduced herself as Gabriela.

Like all of Josefina's children, she had inherited the thick dark brown curls of her father. Unlike Josefina's first two sons and Ranz though, Gabriela's eyes were brown like her mother's.

"Mom said you're my _sister_ ," said Gabriela, and Ranz had stood up, grabbed their bag, and stormed out.

"Ranz! Wait! _Frisk! Frisk, come back!_ " Juanito's voice had followed them as they marched down the stairs, but Analyn's came shortly after.

"Let him go, Nito."

(In another world, Frisk broke down at ten and learned to talk to their new family. In this one, Ranz learned to pretend everything was fine.)

They didn't talk to Juanito for a week after that, and they didn't see much of Analyn either, busy as both were with preparations for the wedding.

One Saturday morning, Juanito invited them out with him. They went, throwing on a jacket and grabbing an umbrella to fight the downpour that had started up outside. They walked to Juanito's car together in silence, and it was only when Ranz reached for one of the backseat doors that the silence was broken.

"Oh no, you're going in the front," said Juanito.

"...you didn't bring Ana?"

"Nope. It's just the two of us today, bro."

In another world, in a place where magic ran free and monsters wished for the surface, Frisk grew up almost always at their brother's side, and they simply grew up doing everything together.

Ranz didn't have that. They grew up following their brother around, and close as they were, they grew to have separate lives. They had things to do that didn't always mean being together.

So they'd hopped into that car, and for one day, they'd felt like a kid again, walking in step beside their brother, except they had wandered malls and swapped milkshakes, when in the past they'd go down to the river at the mountain's base and play in the water.

Then it was Sunday, and Juanito had slammed the door to their room open, face pale and eyes wide as he said, "We have to go back."

"What?" Ranz had squinted up at their brother from under the covers, before glancing at the clock on their bedside table. It was four in the morning.

"Mom called," said Juanito, and before Ranz could say anything in response, he added, "Gabriela's missing. We _have_  to go home, Frisk."

The small town that lay by Mt. Ebott had grown into a city of its own right in their years away. The mountain in question didn't seem so big anymore, now that there were buildings almost as tall as it.

Their old home, the tiny building that could barely hold a family of six, was gone. Francisco and Josefina had saved up and moved to a townhouse with their remaining three children. As they shuffled in through the front door behind Juanito and Analyn, Ranz thought to themselves that this was not a place for them. This was not home, this was not where they'd played and bled and cried. The photos full of smiling people that littered the _sala_  walls and that cabinet top over there did not have them in it. They were photos of a family that wasn't theirs.

That night, Josefina had made _sinigang_. The familiar taste of the soup had done nothing to change Ranz's mood. They had kept quiet as Juanito fell into easy conversation with their other brothers, as Analyn opened up to them and quickly became one of them.

They had only spoken up when the conversation turned to Gabriela.

"What if she went to the mountain?" they had said.

The table had fallen quiet. Looks were exchanged, and suddenly, Ranz was certain they were right.

"We don't want to suggest that to the police," said Rafael.

"Why not?" asked Juanito, "They could organize a search for her."

And then the silence had come again, and this time it had stretched on and on, until finally, Rafael had sighed.

"Because," he said, "the moment it's confirmed someone went to the mountain, you can't get the police to do anything."

"Then what use is the police?" snapped Juanito. "Agustin, what the hell are you guys thinking?"

And like Juanito, Ranz stared at their third brother, still in his policeman's uniform, shaking his head as he said, "Because it's a waste of resources when not a single child who went to Mt. Ebott has been found."

Ranz stood up. "...Juanito, I saw a hotel down the road."

And they'd walked out of that place that wasn't their home without another word.

(In another world, Juanito would have discovered this a different way, and he would have shouted, "Try harder! You have to find these kids, _somehow_!"

And Agustin would have said in return, "It's been fourteen years! Would you just let her go already?")

The hotel was small and the room they received simple.

It had a view of Mt. Ebott.

Ranz had once thought about the mountain that loomed over their hometown. They had been eight. They were twenty-two now.

It would have been easy to disappear then, just as it would be easy to go home to their city tomorrow. They didn't know Gabriela anyway, or any of those other children whose disappearances they'd never heard of, whose fates were left unknown. They didn't know Gabriela. It would be easy.

They had thrown on a jacket and shoved their phone into a pocket. A stop by the nearest store netted them a tiny flashlight and some rope that would surely be useful. The sooner they got out there, the sooner they could find Gabriela.

Ranz sucked in their breath as they stood at the city's gates, staring at the path that led up to Mt. Ebott. In another lifetime, they did this when they were eight. In another lifetime, they climbed the mountain wearing a sweater they had stolen from their brother, fell into a world of magic and monsters, and grew alongside its prince.

In this lifetime, they didn't have that.

But some things didn't change across worlds. Some things were always there, even if, in some worlds, they might take lifetimes to appear.

At twenty-two, Frisk was Captain of the Royal Guard of the Kingdom of Monsters. At twenty-two, Ranz still didn't know what to do with themselves. They didn't know what they were going to do when Juanito married Analyn, when the babies started coming, when their brother moved forward with his life while they aimlessly wandered through it from his house.

They did know _one_ thing though.

The sight of Mt. Ebott looming in the distance, and knowing their sister was out there somewhere...

Well, it filled Ranz with determination.


End file.
